As wireless communication devices such as wireless phones, tablet computers, and netbooks have exploded in popularity, the ability to efficiently and reliably provide wireless service to a variety of devices over large areas has become a critical need for service providers. Current wireless antenna arrays are reaching limiting factors in meeting these demands. These existing technologies are typically implicitly or explicitly based on two semi-static parameters. The first factor is cell attachment, where user equipment (UE) is attached to the cell with the highest RSRP (Reference Signal Received Power). The second factor considered is the mutual interference level, where the transmit points (TPs) that inflict higher interference levels on other TP's attached UEs are generally better candidates for cooperation.
Presently, developing wireless technologies have characteristics that render current interface management, radio access, and TP-UE association techniques, such as CoMP (Cooperative Multi Point) and C-RAN (Cloud Radio Access Network), inefficient. For example, developing wireless networks have inhomogeneous and dynamic network structures, including inhomogeneous and dynamic TPs and UEs, inhomogeneous types of equipment, inhomogeneous types of traffic, and inhomogeneous priorities and weights that are not effectively managed by CoMP and C-RAN. Furthermore, developing wireless networks may rely on inter-UE cooperation that is not supported by existing association techniques.
Prior solutions, such as the C-RAN TP grouping algorithms, rely on hard TP-UE association based on which UE belongs to a cell with the highest RSRP. What is needed is an efficient and dynamic TP grouping and TP-UE association technology that considers important factors, such as TP-TP sum mutual interference levels, the effect of cell loads, UE collaboration, equipment types, traffic types, UE importance, UE priorities, and historic network performance knowledge.